


Secret Santa

by kethni



Category: Veep (TV)
Genre: F/M, Secret Santa, request fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:34:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28313892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kethni/pseuds/kethni
Summary: Selina looked at the box. One of the little pieces of paper had a corner folded down. Gary gave her a meaningful look as he shook the box, but carefully so as not to risk dislodging that piece of paper with the folded down corner.
Relationships: Kent Davison/Selina Meyer
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	Secret Santa

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Anon for the request

It was a lame idea designed to promote a bullshit idea of togetherness and teamwork and forgetting that you were being screwed over by your own side. But that was half of the traditions in politics. The other half was grabbing your secretary’s ass while you experimented with the finest booze/uppers/downers/painkillers/delete as appropriate.

Even so, here she was anyway, pretending that Secret Santa wasn’t a blight on workplace culture. She didn’t buy gifts. She _gave_ gifts. She gave a lot of gifts. But she didn’t buy any of them. Nobody expected POTUS to go shopping. That would be nuts. She had better things to do that try to think what people actually wanted. She had people to do that stuff. Gary _loved_ all that crap. He was terrible at it, but he loved it. Selina had seen the looks on people’s faces when she gave them things that Gary had bought them. Sue wasn’t much better. One year, Sue had chosen for Amy that _Art of War_ book. Amy looked at it like she’d been handed a bag of earthworms. Gary had chosen a box set of _The Sopranos_ for Ben. Neither of them had noticed that Amy swapped her _Art of War_ with Dan’s expensive coffee and that Ben had swapped his box set with Kent’s bottle of whiskey.

Gary was too fucking excited about pulling the names out. Nobody else looked more than slightly bored. Mike was looking at his cell phone. Selina pulled a face. He was probably trying to sell something on the eBay again. Whatever the hell that was.

Please let her not get Sue. She had no damn idea _what_ the hell to get her. Sue had worked for Selina for four years and Selina hadn’t the faintest idea what she liked other than nice tops and wearing her hair up. Neither of them exactly made for easy gift giving.

Ben shambled into the room with Kent right behind him, on his phone. She didn’t know how they’d managed that. Kent moved a _lot_ faster than Ben. Well, walking at least. Nobody moved faster than Ben when it came to marriages, affairs, and divorces. If there was a gold medal at the Olympics for it then Ben would’ve been an all-time champion.

Great, maybe if she got Ben in the Secret Santa, she could get him a coupon for a divorce lawyer. The gift that keeps on giving!

‘What’s the limit again?’ Mike asked Sue.

She gave him a dirty look. ‘Thirty dollars.’

‘Oh, wow, as much as that?’

Sue narrowed her eyes. ‘You work at the West Wing, Mike. You make over a hundred thousand dollars a year. How are you quibbling at thirty dollars?’

Selina rolled her eyes. Mike would struggle for money if he had a hundred thousand dollars a week. Some people just had no head for economics. That reminded her, she needed to look at the damn expenses report again. The bane of her damn life. Crazy really that she was expected to pay for so much stuff herself. Some days she felt like she was paying for the privilege of being the president.

Gary clapped his hands together. ‘We’re ready!’ he trilled. ‘Ma’am, would you like to go first?’

Selina forced something approaching a smile and marched over to the box that he was clutching. The mood in the room wasn’t great. They’d all been working too hard for too long. Morale was in the damn toilet. She’d have to ask Amy what would cheer people up. She’d have to find someone else to ask how to cheer Amy up. Cheerful Amy. What an image. Her head might explode.

Selina looked at the box. One of the little pieces of paper had a corner folded down. Gary gave her a meaningful look as he shook the box, but _carefully_ so as not to risk dislodging that piece of paper with the folded down corner.

Oh, hell no. She wasn’t going to be Gary’s Secret Santa. She’d never heard the damn end of it, even if she got him something he actually wanted. She gritted her teeth and shoved her hand deep into the box, swirling around the pieces of paper, and grabbing one.

‘But…’ Gary wailed, his eyes wide.

‘Great,’ Selina said, briskly. ‘Good job, Gary.’ She walked back to her spot and unfolded the folded piece of paper. _Kent Davison_. She frowned slightly. Not great but better than Sue. Or Amy.

Ben and Mike were bickering over who should go next.

‘Why do you want to do it?’ Mike asked. ‘You hate this kind of stuff.’

‘I go now, and I’ve got the best chance of messing up Kent’s Christmas,’ Ben said.

Selina tried not to smirk.

‘You don’t need to buy me a bad gift to ruin my Christmas,’ Kent said.

Ben plodded over to Gary. ‘It’ll just be more fun this way.’

‘They should just make out,’ Dan murmured to Amy.

‘Okay, ew,’ Amy whispered back.

Selina had to agree. Ben might have been attractive back in the day, presumably at least some of the hordes of wives and mistresses had some level of eyesight and self-respect, now he was an older guy with a bad temper, a worse diet, and more heart problems than most hospitals. Plus, he was the one who seemed to have most of the issues. Kent mostly gave as good as he got on the bitchy bickering front, but he was never the one initiating all that crap.

Ben didn’t bother to walk back before opening up his piece of paper. ‘Shit.’

‘Looks like you’re up, Ames,’ Dan suggested.

‘Why?’ Mike asked.

‘Because we’re going lady, man, lady, man,’ Dan said. ‘Not lady, man, ambulatory moustache.’

‘Maybe _you_ should make out already,’ Amy suggested.

‘In his dreams,’ Dan muttered.

Gary was distracted, looking in his pockets for something, and shifting around so much that Amy had to grab the box from him.

‘Have you misplaced something?’ Kent asked.

‘No, no, definitely not,’ Gary said quickly.

Ben smirked. It took Selina a second to get it.

‘Gary, have you palmed one of the names?’ Dan asked. ‘Are you actually that –’

‘No, I haven’t!’ Gary protested.

Kent took the box, dumped out the pieces of paper, and counted them. ‘These appear to be the correct number of pieces of paper.’

Gary looked down at them. His eyes skipped over them, looking for something in particular. His shoulders sagged.

‘Oh.’

Sue cleared her throat. ‘Can we speed this up? The President has a _very_ busy schedule.’

Ben took another look at his piece of paper as if checking something. Selina didn’t notice. 

***

Kent would not admit to having any form of mischief in his nature and one would be hard pressed to prove it. His cool manner and dry humour seemed to run at odds with the very idea. Nonetheless, if he had been asked, then he might have admitted a certain tendency to run counter to expectations largely to see what would happen. He generally restrained himself to events which appear to carry little risk of negative consequences.

Events such as the Secret Santa. He had noticed the piece of paper with the faint pencil cross on it and knew at once what it represented. Seeing Gary’s realisation that he had accidentally put his chosen name into the box rather than palming it, had given him a tiny prickle of guilt. But only a tiny one.

It had been quite obvious whose name Gary would want, and it was equally obvious that would inevitably cause embarrassment. It was probably the best for everyone that he didn’t get it. If you looked at it that way, then Kent had likely done him a favour.

‘You look constipated,’ Ben said.

‘It’s my imitation of you pretending to believe that you’ve done the right thing,’ Kent said.

Ben snorted. ‘I never think I’ve done the right thing. If my life wasn’t an endless cavalcade of fucking disasters would I be here with you?’

‘I always assumed that was more of a judgement on my poor decision making.’ Kent nodded at the paper that Ben had crushed in his fist. ‘Not what you wanted?’

Ben grunted and showed him the paper. Kent shrugged.

‘A spa voucher.’

‘You think?’

Kent nodded. ‘I’ll get you the address of her preferred location.’

‘How about you?’ Ben asked.

Kent showed it to him.

‘Lucky,’ Ben said.

Kent regarded it. ‘How so?’

Ben shrugged. ‘She won’t even notice what you buy her. It’ll just go on the pile with all the rest of the unwanted crap she gets.’

Kent nodded. ‘I hadn’t considered that. You’re right.’

Ben adjusted his trousers. ‘I’m always right. Especially about women and gifts.’

Kent raised his eyebrows. ‘If you are the consequence of always being right then I don’t wish to see what happens when one is always wrong.’

‘I think it’s called being Jonah,’ Ben suggested.

***

Kent walked slowly back to his tiny office. He didn’t necessarily disagree with Ben’s assertion, but he didn’t feel it was entirely the safest approach. That could be said for many of Ben’s suggestions. The man was too tired to do anything but the barest minimum and hope that it was enough. Kent had never been in a career for so long that he grew to find the entire endeavour exhausting physically and mentally. He hoped that, should the day come, he would be sensible enough to leave. Pushing on in a role that gave him nothing, but misery seemed like a Sisyphean nightmare.

He put the piece of paper on the desk. _Selina Meyer_. Well, he had nobody but himself to blame. He had known that it was going to be hers or Gary’s. He could only assume that Gary had hoped to have her responsible for his gift as well. Kent was unclear on what Gary had hoped to achieve by _that_. He surely didn’t think that she would actually pick out and chose the gift herself? The woman didn’t even pick out her own shoes. It wasn’t entirely unreasonable, Kent would admit. Her life was exceptionally busy, and her time was too regimented for her to waste time on decisions that were _important_ , certainly, but did not necessarily require her direct attention. Kent sat down at his desk and gave it some thought. Perhaps what irritated him about it, about her, was that she would almost certainly have done the same thing if she were not the President.

What did you buy for the woman who not only had everything but expected to always have everything as soon as it was available and in every possible colour? When the recipient was chronically entitled, what possible gift could ever be anything other than disappointing?

He really should have let Gary have her name. It would have been the best choice by far.

***

Now even Gary was sulking. Selina rolled her eyes. ‘Some morale booster that was,’ she said, throwing the folded paper onto the desk.

Gary managed to rein in his misery enough to answer without sounding like he was going to try. ‘I could ask if someone wants to swap.’

‘Oh my God,’ Catherine said. ‘You can’t do that. It negates the whole _point_ of having a Secret Santa in the first place.’

‘Not if the whole point is cheer people up,’ Selina said. ‘They look more pissed than they did before.’

Catherine pulled a face. ‘Why would being compelled to buy someone you don’t know or like that well a present cheer _anyone_ up?’

‘That’s a good question,’ Selina said. ‘Gary?’

He blinked at them in almost bovine confusion. ‘It’s Christmas. Yay!’

‘You should have a party,’ Catherine said. ‘Or just… I don’t know, give them booze. That’s what normally cheers them up.’

‘Great idea,’ Selina sniffed. ‘Then we can all celebrate with the mass restraining orders after all the groping and screwing in stationary cupboards.’

Amy paused in the doorway, stopped in the act of marching in with a sheaf of reports. ‘Who’s screwing in the stationary cupboard?’

Selina sat up a little straighter. ‘Catherine thinks that the key to raising morale is to get everyone drunk.’

‘Or a party,’ Catherine said quickly. ‘I said a party first.’

Amy clicked her pen over and over. ‘Blowing off some steam could be good,’ she said. ‘People have been working hard for months.’

‘Well, they should be, this is the fucking White House,’ Selina snapped. ‘But, fine, a Christmas Party.’

‘Do I have to go?’ Catherine asked, pulling a face.

Selina pulled her face. ‘We’ll have a nice, polite drink with all those hors d’oeuvres that Gary loves organising –’

Gary brightened immediately. ‘Ooh, I’ll start making a list.’

‘ – and then we’ll go to the residence while they all go to wherever the junior staff are lurking and they’ll get so drunk they end up passing out upside down with their heads in other people’s desks,’ Selina concluded.

‘Mike only did that once,’ Amy said.

‘That doesn’t sound safe,’ Catherine protested.

The other two women looked at her.

‘Really?’ Selina asked. ‘You’re gonna pretend that you never drank so much of that yellow crap that you threw up like I needed to call an exorcist?’

Catherine clasped her arms around her. ‘Advocaat is heavier than I expected,’ she mumbled. ‘The cream upset my stomach.’

‘Nasty,’ Gary whispered.

Selina shrugged. ‘So, don’t buy any Advocaat,’ she said. ‘It’s not like any of these assholes are gonna have sophisticated palates.’ She pushed her fingers through her hair. ‘Most of them would drink antifreeze if it came to it.’

‘That would be cheaper,’ Amy remarked.

Selina snickered. ‘Not when you figure in all the funerals.’

‘Do you want me to take care of this?’ Gary asked, reaching towards the piece of paper on the desk.

‘Yeah,’ Selina said. ‘Wait, no.’

‘Who did you get?’ Amy asked.

Catherine rolled her eyes. ‘It’s supposed to be a _secret_.’

Selina and Amy exchanged a look.

‘Well, it’s nobody in here,’ Selina said.

Amy shrugged. ‘Alcohol or aftershave for men. Chocolates or perfume for women.’

‘Christmas at your house must be fun,’ Catherine remarked.

‘We all smell great,’ Amy said.

‘Men are impossible to buy gifts for,’ Selina complained. ‘What do they even want?’

Amy clicked her pen. ‘To go back to a time when women were property?’

Selina put her hand on her hip. ‘Feels like that would be kinda outside the thirty-dollar budget.’

‘I don’t think they _all_ want that,’ Catherine protested.

‘I don’t,’ Gary offered.

‘Kent probably thinks it’d be easier if _nobody_ had the vote,’ Selina said. ‘His idea of a great Christmas present would be like a bag of gears and valves.’

‘He still wears the watch that Sue bought him,’ Gary said.

They looked at him.

‘Sue bought him a watch?’ Amy asked. ‘Why?’

‘It was his birthday,’ Gary said. ‘And she didn’t like the one he had. She said it clashed with her jewellery.’

Catherine licked her lips. ‘They were together, right? I mean… it’s so difficult to tell what’s going on with Sue. And with Kent.’

Amy glanced through the door as if worried that Sue might hear them.

‘They broke up,’ Gary said. ‘It was really brutal. It went on for _months_.’

‘The breaking up?’ Catherine asked.

Gary nodded. ‘Sue hates all her exes.’

‘Better hope nobody buys Kent another watch,’ Amy said.

Selina pulled a face. ‘Definitely not a thirty dollar one. I can’t stand a man with cheap and crappy accessories.’

Gary surreptitiously pulled his sleeve down over his watch.

‘It’s kind of romantic that he’s still wearing it,’ Catherine said.

‘Sure,’ Amy said, in a tone that called her a liar. ‘We’re also talking about Kent. He’s not going to stop using a perfectly good watch just because he’s no longer banging the person who gave it to him.’

‘I wish someone would give Ben a new watch,’ Selina remarked. ‘New suits. New shoes. He looks like someone shoved him through a hedge.’

‘He was really annoyed with whoever he got in the Secret Santa,’ Amy remarked. ‘I hope it was Dan. Ben would get him something awful.’

Selina sat down. ‘Whoever Ben is buying for is going to end up with something awful. Same goes to Dan.’

Amy jumped aside as Sue marched into the room.

‘Hey Sue, ears burning?’ Selina asked casually.

Sue looked at her. ‘Ma’am?’

Selina waved her hands. ‘We were joking that men can’t buy decent gifts to save their lives.’

Sue pursed her lips. ‘Some men, certainly.’ She drew herself up. ‘You have a meeting with Roger Furlong.’

Selina groaned. ‘Now?’

‘Yes, Ma’am.’

‘Great, that’s just what I need.’

***

Sue had bought him a watch and he was still wearing it. Selina drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair. Damn it. It wasn’t the same, obviously it wasn’t the same, but even so, she wasn’t going to be outshone by Sue. It was _infuriating_. She couldn’t even outspend her since the limit was thirty dollars. Whose stupid idea was that?

‘Am I boring you, Ma’am?’ Furlong asked.

Selina _didn’t_ say, “no more than normal,” which was what she thought. Instead she mustered a half-hearted smile. ‘Got a lot on my mind. Affairs of state. Peace in the Middle East. Staff morale. All the stuff.’

Furlong snorted. ‘Staff morale? I never worry about that.’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘No kidding.’

‘Someone is miserable enough to start muttering about getting another job you just make them _more_ miserable until they can’t face making the effort to leave.’

Selina looked at Will, who gave a hopeless shrug. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘You don’t think that your staff being horribly depressed might affect their work negatively?’

‘Huh,’ Furlong said. ‘I never thought about it.’

‘Whose morale are you trying to improve, Ma’am?’ Will asked politely.

She blew out her cheeks. ‘Everyone’s. We’re having a Christmas party so that might help some. I also need to buy a Secret Santa present too.’

Furlong stood up. ‘If it’s a man buy cigars and if it’s a woman buy pearls.’

Selina rolled her eyes. ‘It’s a thirty-dollar limit, Roger.’

He recoiled in disgust. ‘Do _not_ give anyone thirty-dollar cigars!’

She shook her head. ‘I’ll try to resist the urge.’

Furlong noticed Ben in the room beyond. ‘Well, this was fun, Ma’am. If you excuse me, I need to go shake Ben until he gives me the damn paperwork I’ve been chasing.’

She waved a hand, but he was already moving. ‘Hey, Will, maybe you could help me. Just between us. It is supposed to be a secret.’

He actually smiled in a way that looked like normal human enthusiasm and not the dying spasm of someone whose life was a daily nightmare. ‘I’ll do my best.’

‘Do you know what kind of stuff Kent is interested in? Besides like… math. And boats.’

Will scratched his temple. ‘I had a conversation with once about camping.’

She blinked at him. ‘What?’

‘Mr Davison is a keen outdoorsman,’ Will said. ‘Hiking. Camping. Whitling. I don’t think that he hunts. He didn’t mention it.’

‘Are you sure?’ she asked. ‘Although I guess it might explain the river rafting BS.’

Will shrugged. ‘I believe so. Perhaps you can do something with that?’

Selina smiled wanly. ‘Yeah, maybe I can buy him a bear.’

***

Catherine was minding her own business, she had a lot of things to do, she was very busy, she wasn’t just wandering around bored, when Kent headed straight towards her.

She immediately panicked. Kent was the person who was sent to “talk” to her when she had been caught doing anything bad enough to potentially cause a significant problem but not bad enough to warrant her mother _or_ was too unpleasant/embarrassing for her mother to deal with.

There was always something about Kent that managed to make her feel like a naughty seven-year-old. She didn’t _think_ that he did it on purpose. He didn’t strike her as someone who was interested in any kind of emotional blackmail or that he’d have any idea how to do it even if he meant to. It didn’t help that he reminded her _so much_ of a whole bunch of different tutors and teachers that she’d had. Not any one in particular. Just a kind of amalgamated reminder of lots of them.

‘Catherine might be talk briefly in my office?’ he asked.

She twisted her toe into the carpet. ‘I guess,’ she said uneasily. The problem with Kent telling her off about something, apart from the obvious problem that she was being told off, was that it was never immediately clear what it was that he had found out about.

She suspected that was done deliberately. When she made the mistake of volunteering things that he might be about to tell off about he tended to make little notes to follow up on the things that he hadn’t in fact known about already.

Her shoulders slumped as she followed him into his tiny, cramped office. It was strange, really, that he had so much stuff in there. All the little pictures and the knick-knacks. It didn’t seem like him. It definitely didn’t seem like the Kent that Selina used to rant about being a robot and cold and all that stuff.

Catherine took a deep breath. This time she was going to wait for him to ask first. She wasn’t going to guess what he’d found out about.

‘I drew your mother in the Secret Santa, and I’m really quite unsure what would be an appropriate gift,’ he said.

‘ _Oh_ ,’ she said, making it almost a groan. ‘I thought you’d found out about the photographs or something.’

DAMN IT.

His lips twitched for a moment and he reached down to scrawl a quick note. ‘Let’s circle back to that in a few moments.’

Catherine sighed and slumped down into his guest chair. ‘Can I have some of that mint tea that you’ve got?’

***

It made no damn sense. The more Selina tried to find out about Kent, the less she understood. Camping. Motorcycles. Boats. Math. Food. _The Grateful Dead_. The Grateful Dead! What the hell was wrong with the man that he apparently chose hobbies and interests with all the care and consideration of a dog chasing a whole forest full of squirrels?

‘If they’re just waiting for us to leave so they can all get drunk why are we even going?’ Catherine asked. ‘I know it’s “what’s done” but why do we have to do things just because other people have done then? Bad ideas that have been done tons of time don’t become good ideas.’

Selina, checking her makeup in the mirror, glanced over at Catherine. ‘You done?’

Catherine shrugged. ‘I guess.’

‘We’re showing some appreciation for all the hard work that they do,’ Selina said. They exchanged looks and Selina shrugged. ‘Yeah, yeah. I know.’

‘Where’s Gary?’ Catherine asked, as they headed to the door.

‘Ugh, I had to practically kick him out to go get changed for the party.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘If anyone needs to get really drunk and dance on a table then it’s Gary.’

‘Not Amy?’

Selina thought about it. ‘Nah, Amy’s a get drunk and sleep with Dan type.’

Catherine shuddered. ‘Dan is so gross.’

Selina gave her a sideways look. ‘He’s good looking.’

‘He’s _pretty_ ,’ Catherine admitted. ‘But he’s so awful.’

Selina smirked. ‘I wouldn’t kick him out of bed.’

Catherine rolled her eyes. ‘Mom, you didn’t kick _dad_ out of bed. Your taste in men is the worst!’

‘I’ve dated some decent guys!’ Selina protested.

‘When?’ Catherine asked.

Selina scowled at her. ‘Okay, for a politician I am doing _great_. I’ve only been divorced once. Ben’s on his fourth marriage.’

‘Do you really want to be Ben?’ Catherine asked. ‘He’s had a bunch of heart attacks. He screams at interns for fun!’

‘Jesus, I wish I could,’ Selina said. ‘I can’t even yell at the senior staffers without it being a big _thing_.’

They regarded the exit from the residence.

‘I can’t believe that Dan’s the staffer that you’d want to…’ Catherine shook her head. ‘I mean, I can, because he’s a lot like dad in a ton of ways. That’s not good, Mom.’

Selina rolled her eyes as the doors were opened. ‘What, I should be interested in Ben or… Mike… or…’

Catherine pulled a face. ‘Jesus, Mom, do you listen to yourself?’

‘What?’

‘You are _constantly_ talking about Kent and Kent’s dick and Kent’s cum-face and so much stuff about clearly how much you want to bang him,’ Catherine said.

Selina opened and closed her mouth. ‘That is completely –’

Beyond the doors, the assemble staffers clapped politely.

Selina forced her expression into a blank smile. ‘Hi, folks.’

***

‘Are you fucking anyone?’

Kent forced down the mouthful of brandy and shook his head. ‘I’m not currently in a relationship.’

‘I thought not,’ Sue said. ‘Don’t you think that it’s time for you to accept that you will never equal me and amend your expectations appropriately?’

Kent closed his eyes shut for a moment. ‘That is… an interesting perspective.’

‘You’re only human, Kent,’ she said. ‘You have needs. However pathetic is it that you have to continue on without me in your life, the fact is that you simply must.’

Kent gave her a look. ‘That is certainly a viewpoint.’

‘People are beginning to worry about you,’ she said, regarding her empty glass with distaste. ‘Find some geeky woman with a cat and date her.’

Kent tried not to smile. ‘Those are your only criteria for me?’

She waved her hand. ‘Men claim to have pages and pages of things that are necessary in a partner. I believe there’s a name for men who insist on those: incel.’

‘Oof,’ Kent said. ‘And yet I feel insulted that you believe me to have almost no standards.’

Sue counted on her fingers. ‘One: geeky, therefore intelligent and with likely a wide variety of interests over which you can bond. Two: has a cat, therefore capable of giving affection and taking care of someone without demanding constant reassurance and excessive attention.’

Kent opened and closed his mouth. ‘I see.’

Sue was about to say something but looked past him. ‘POTUS and Catherine have arrived.’

Kent swivelled and politely joined in the scattered applause.

‘Do you think we’ll have to be long here?’ Ben asked, wandering over to them. ‘I’m ready for the proper drinking now.’

Kent looked at the glass of whiskey in his hand. ‘Is that toy drinking?’

‘I’m just warming up,’ Ben said. ‘Pacing myself for the night.’

Sue shook her head. ‘I can feel my liver crying,’ she said as she moved away.

‘That’s rich,’ Ben remarked. ‘She’s no teetotaller either.’

‘Catherine looks like she’d much rather be anywhere else,’ Kent observed. ‘I doubt that they’ll remain here long.’

Ben snorted. ‘Catherine always looks like she’d rather be somewhere else.’

Normal conversation resumed as Selina and Catherine moved into the general crowd of staffers.

‘I could do with something stronger,’ Ben remarked, looking at his glass.

Kent raised his eyebrows. ‘I sincerely doubt that there’s any absinthe around.’

‘I’ve never tried absinthe,’ Ben admitted. ‘What’s it taste like?’

Kent vaguely gestured with his hand. ‘Aniseed.’

Ben pulled a face. ‘I fucking hate aniseed.’

‘Don’t drink it then.’ Kent registered Ben’s expression. ‘Ah…’

‘You’re not telling me that nobody here is carrying something.’ Ben twisted as he looked around the room. ‘Probably a couple of the interns.’

‘They’re hardly likely to volunteer it to either of us,’ Kent remarked. ‘Catherine might be a better option.’

‘A better option for what?’ Catherine asked.

The two of them turned around. Kent gathered himself first.

‘Ben has something that he’d like to ask you,’ Kent said. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’

He heard Ben growling under his breath as he walked away. It was too warm for him in the room now. He should have had a substantial meal before he’d had anything to drink. He simply hadn’t had the time. That wasn’t unusual for him these days. He didn’t normally drink though when he hadn’t eaten.

Kent opened one of the doors leading out to the Rose Garden. It was far cooler outside, and the sun had already gone down. Kent leant back and looked up at the sky. There was far too much light pollution in D.C. for the stars to be visible but there was still something beautiful about it.

He heard the door open again and glance back. He tensed slightly and licked his lips.

‘Oh,’ Selina said. ‘Hey.’ She ashamedly held up her hand in which a cigarette was between her fingers. ‘Don’t tell Gary.’

Kent smiled slightly. ‘Your secret is safe with me.’

‘You’re not going to tell me that he’ll be able to smell it anyway?’ She shut the door and moved towards him, away from prying eyes.

‘I’ll allow him to do that,’ Kent said mildly.

Selina lit her cigarette. ‘Nixon used to get so drunk that he wanted to nuke Korea.’

Kent nodded. ‘I understand that you have considered bombing Finland.’

She blinked at him and blew out a stream of smoke. ‘What?’

He shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

Selina reddened. ‘You heard about the groping?’ 

Kent hesitated a moment. ‘I’m afraid I have no idea what you mean.’

She laughed dryly and shook her head. ‘Nice try.’ She breathed out a stream of smoke. ‘Did you _not_ hear if from Mike?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

She regarded the cigarette. ‘I suppose you’ve never smoked. I’m half surprised you’re even having a drink.’

Kent shrugged. ‘I’ve no problem with other people smoking or drinking if those are their choices,’ he said. ‘Provided that they make informed choices.’

Selina looked at him. ‘But you’re all healthy. You do yoga and all that stuff.’

He sipped his brandy. ‘Presumably Mike didn’t tell you that.’

She shrugged. ‘I can’t remember.’ She glanced at him. ‘I got your Secret Santa. I’ve been practically stalking you trying to work out what to buy you.’

Kent chuckled. ‘I have the exact same issue.’

‘Huh? How’d that happen?’

Kent shrugged. ‘I suppose it isn’t entirely outside the realms of coincidence.’

Selina ran her thumb around the lip of her glass. ‘People buy me terrible gifts all the time. You couldn’t buy me anything worse than I’ve had this year. How many penile sheaths does any woman need?’

Kent grinned at her. ‘I suppose the answer would be either none or all of them.’

Selina snickered. ‘Look at you, laughing at that. What, there’s something funny about _penile sheaths_?’

Kent took a sip of his brandy. ‘Oh, nothing whatsoever. Especially not the part of where they’re apparently being sent to you for some reason.’

‘Oh, I get sent _everything_ ,’ she said, waggling her eyebrows. ‘You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff that I get sent.’

‘I wonder why you wanted to have a Secret Santa then,’ he said.

She rolled her eyes. ‘It’s supposed to raise morale. Apparently, you assholes are in crappy moods.’

He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘I can’t imagine why. We’re clearly so highly valued.’

‘Hey, I’m throwing you a party and I’ve spent half the day trying to find out what you like and what present I should buy you.’

Kent knew that colour was flushing into his cheeks.

‘That’s very kind of you,’ he said. ‘I am surprised that you didn’t simply delegate the task to Gary.’

Selina shrugged. ‘Doesn’t seem really in the spirit of the thing.’

‘I suppose not,’ Kent agreed. He licked his lips. ‘Did you find success?’

‘Nope!’

He laughed. ‘It can’t be anything worse than I’ve received from Ben.’

Selina smiled. ‘He doesn’t get his wives to pick Christmas and Birthday presents?’

‘At times, perhaps. The approach has varied wildly.’ Kent took another sip of brandy. ‘He once gave me a volume of an Encyclopaedia. Not the entire set you understand, part 2 of the letter E.’

Selina sniggered. ‘Oh, that’s a good one!’

‘Another year he gave me piece of cheese,’ Kent said. ‘Not a selection or a basket. A single piece of cheese wrapped in a piece of tissue. It was turning green.’

Selina had to lean back against the wall. ‘Jesus, that’s _hilarious_. I’m imagining your face when you opened it. Was it wrapped up in fancy paper?’

‘No, in screwed up brown paper.’

‘I don’t know if that’s better or worse,’ she laughed.

Kent shrugged. She was pretty sure that he was trying not to smile. ‘So, as you can see, the bar is extremely low.

She shook her head. ‘Maybe I should’ve specified it had to be terrible presents. I bet that would be better for morale.’

‘You might be right,’ he admitted. ‘Certainly, achievable for much less money.’

She squinted at him. ‘Is that what’s up people’s craws, money?’

Kent shook his head. ‘I don’t believe that’s the general underlying issues, although when someone is already disgruntled irritation with pay is quite common.’

‘Nuts,’ she grumbled. ‘That would’ve been easy.’

Kent glanced at his watch. Selina sipped her drink.

‘That the best present?’ she asked.

Kent looked at her blankly. She nodded at the watch.

‘Sue gave you that, right? Someone told me that.’

‘Oh.’ He looked at the watch as if seeing it for the first time. ‘It was a replacement after she broke the watch that I had.’

Selina took a long drag on her cigarette. ‘That’s a whole different complexion on it. How’d she break your other watch?’

Kent hesitated for a moment. ‘She hit it with her shoe. She didn’t have her contacts in, and she seemed to imagine it was some kind of bug.’

Selina stared at him. ‘How bad are her eyes?’

Kent smiled wryly. ‘Extremely. I would appreciate it if you didn’t mention it to her that I told you. She is quite sensitive about it.’

Selina tapped ash from her cigarette. ‘At least she replaced it.’

‘With deep reluctance,’ Kent said. ‘Sue is not given to admitting any wrongdoing or error. This is a concrete reminder of, in her mind, two significant errors.’

Selina raised her eyebrows. ‘Oh. You wearing it isn’t some romantic thing then.’

He shook his head. ‘No, although I am a romantic by nature that is not the case here.’

Selina blinked. ‘You are?’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t imagine that it’s a facet much likely to be revealed in a working environment.’

Selina ground out her cigarette. ‘You’re lucky. My entire fucking life is open to every damn person who works for me. You know more about my private life than most people know about their damn partners.’

Kent gave her a look she’d never seen from him before. ‘I never considered it in that way before.’

‘Yeah, well, poor little me, right? Waah, waah, rich, famous, and powerful,’ she said sourly. ‘I’m exhausted all the time, I can’t get any of my bills through, my name is a punchline, and every guy I meet I either have to worry will be put off by all of _this_ or is a parasite.’ She took a deep breath. ‘This is where you either change the subject or make some spiteful comment about the time of the month.’

Kent pursed his lips. ‘I don’t believe that I have ever made any comment to a woman about her cycle, let alone a spiteful one intended to diminish and belittle her.’

‘Oh,’ Selina said, relaxing a fraction. ‘Okay. Pretty much ever guy I’ve dated has said something like that to me.’

‘You’re dating the wrong men,’ Kent suggested.

She narrowed her eyes. ‘Don’t you start on that. I had enough from Catherine telling me that I have terrible taste in men.’

Kent nodded. ‘My sister tells me the same about my romantic history.’

Selina shook her head. ‘I spent half my day asking about your insane hobbies and nobody even told me that you have a sister.’

Kent brushed his fingers through his hair. ‘I wouldn’t say that she’s a _hobby_.’

‘Smart ass,’ she snorted.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I like it.’

It took her a second to register it. Then she twisted around to look at him ass. ‘You should. God, I can’t believe you actually said that. How much have you had to drink?’

‘Probably not enough to justify that,’ he admitted.

Selina started to turn back to the door. ‘Do you wanna maybe come and have a drink with me? We can really hammer out the gift business.’

He was quiet long enough for her to be sure that he knew _exactly_ what she was suggested.

‘I’d like that,’ he said.

The End.


End file.
